


Tempted

by scorchedtrees



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 13:17:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2026503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorchedtrees/pseuds/scorchedtrees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things Gendry wants to do, and one he actually does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tempted

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Arya/Gendry Week Day 7: Tempted. I've written a whole crapload of fics in this style before for a different ship and now I'm forcing it upon this ship as well ahh. This is dumb and unoriginal but oh well.

_1._

"Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, the Hound. Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, the Hound. Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, the Hound…"

Gendry shifts and presses one ear to the ground, but his short hair does nothing to cover the other. He lifts one arm over the side of his head in another attempt to block out the sound; the posture is uncomfortable and does nothing to alleviate the hardness of his makeshift bed or the soft voice murmuring not too far from where he lies.

"Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, the Hound…"

_Can you be quiet? People are trying to sleep,_  he wants to say, but while he cannot imagine how she must feel right now—he has never had a father; he doesn’t know how he’d react to one getting ripped away from him—he does know what the names mean to her, so he keeps his complaints to himself and tries to ignore her whispers.

"Joffrey, Cersei, Ilyn Payne, the Hound…"

He sighs and flips over on his stomach, burying his face in his hands.  _Easier said than done._

_2._

She’s angry with him.

She says she isn’t, but he can hear the coldness in her tone when she speaks to him, the way her eyes avoid his when they’re in the same room. Arya’s never been a good liar.

"I don’t need your help," she snaps when he tries to hand her a plate as they sit down to eat. He lets her reach across him to get it herself and watches the way she stabs her meat stubbornly with her fork.

"I know you think the Brotherhood’s not—"

"I told you, I don’t care," she says, interrupting him mid-sentence, but the sullen way she chews her food and glares at a spot past his shoulder says otherwise.

_You have a purpose,_  he wants to tell her,  _a goal, and soon you’ll be reunited with your lord brother and leave me anyway. I’m just a bastard blacksmith with nothing. Don’t you get it?_

He doesn’t even want to spell it out for himself, but there is no need. For one moment the words sit at the edge of his tongue and then he swallows them.

"Forget it," he mutters, as much to himself as her.

_3._

They hear the stories.

Some describe her death in detail at the Twins, others say she was forced into marriage with Ramsey Snow so the Bastard of Bolton could control Winterfell; yet others whisper of her travels across the narrow sea.

Gendry is inclined to believe the last ones, but the Brotherhood has to talk him out of visiting the great castle up North to make sure. He tries not to think of her, but sometimes she takes him by surprise, sneaking up in his thoughts when he least expects it.

It’s been years since they’ve last met but he can still see her face in his mind clear as day: her sharp gray eyes, the slope of her nose, the curve of her mouth. She must be a woman now, if she is alive (of course she is alive, he will not entertain the notion that she is anything but), and he wonders what she looks like.

He imagines leaving the Brotherhood, leaving Westeros and all its troubles behind, going to search for her. Sometimes the notion is stronger than usual and he is sorely tempted to pack up his belongings and just go, but something always stops him, a nagging sensation that he will see her again soon.

He does not know where it comes from, but he tells himself to wait just a bit longer, so he waits, and he wonders.

_4._

She is here, alive and healthy, strong and fierce, and he does not know what to say to her.

She and her wolves helped them win this last battle and the members of the Brotherhood flock around her, offering praise and well wishes, laughing and japing and welcoming her back to the Seven Kingdoms. Gendry hangs back, uncertain, torn between approaching her as well or waiting until the crowd disperses, but eventually he returns to his own tent.

She finds him later, strolling inside without a word, and he looks up from where he sits on the ground with a start. Up close, he can see the changes time has wrought upon her, the loss of baby fat and the curves of womanhood, but more distinct is the cold look that has settled in her eyes.

"You’re not going to say hello?" she asks, and her voice is lower, less unsure and more forceful, but it is still undeniably hers.

He offers her a little bow. “Hello, m’lady.”

_I waited for you to return,_  he nearly says later, in the middle of recalling all he has done while she was gone, but she has not given any indication of wanting to share her past and he knows she did not plan to come back, so he bites back the words and moves on to safer ones.

_5._

He kind of wants to kiss her.

It’s not a safe thought to have, a baseborn bastard thinking of a highborn lady that way, but it’s there all the same. She doesn’t make it any easier for him, visiting him frequently at the forge in Winterfell, inviting him to spar with her, dragging him with her to the godswood or to meet her siblings or just to take a walk around the castle, for no reason other than that she is bored and she finds him good company.

She smiles more when she is with him, laughs sometimes and seems to forget the shadows of her past in Braavos, and it makes him feel like he’s doing some good—but he still wants to kiss her, which is not so good.

He tries not to stare, but one day in the forge she stops talking mid-sentence and says, “Gendry.”

"What?"

He’s soaked with sweat, soot on his face and arms and hands, a hammer at his fingertips, but that doesn’t stop her from taking a step closer to him, then two more until she is too close, and when her fingers reach for his face, he stiffens and pulls away.

"We shouldn’t—"

She cocks her head at him. “I see you look at me. Am I wrong?”

She isn’t, she’s far too right and far too close, but he’s just a lowly bastard and she shouldn’t be standing right in front of him with her lips parted like that and he is tempted to kiss her more than ever but he really, really shouldn’t—

Arya rolls her eyes. “Stupid bull,” she murmurs, and then she leans forward and presses her lips to his, and he gives in.


End file.
